


The Silent Prince

by RelativelyFlaaffy



Category: Persona 4, Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Assassination Plot(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:20:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25656544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RelativelyFlaaffy/pseuds/RelativelyFlaaffy
Summary: Yosuke Hanamura, son of a merchant in the vassal kingdom of Inaba, ends up in the capital of the tyrannical Okami Empire with one goal in mind: ensuring the death of the mysterious crown prince Yu Narukami. With the old Emperor's health rapidly deteriorating and prince Yu being the only possible successor to the throne, if Yosuke succeeds he could bring about the fall of Okami and free the people of Inaba.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Silent Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke reads about the recent history of the Okami Empire and its vassal kingdoms and learns about hope, despair and malice. The hope of a better future in Yongen-Jaya, the despair seeping into every corner of society in the Kingdom of Inaba, and malice hidden under the surface on Tatsumi Port Island.
> 
> Map of the continent: https://imgur.com/a/fLrmUmR

Yosuke's stare bore a hole through the confusing maze of ink markings on his history homework, the words having long lost their meaning and still he hadn't made any progress. There had to be more to live than this. The Junes heir knew that he was privileged to even get an education, most of his peers couldn't even read or write, but he wanted to go out there and do something. Inheriting Junes from his father was definitely not what Yosuke wanted to do with his life. Sure, his father's business was successful, he was after all the only merchant from Inaba allowed to trade in the capital region of the Okami Empire. The capital region itself was called Okami, which always used to confuse him on geography tests. He shook his head and focused again on the 'history textbook'. The Okami Empire, 667 to present day.

The King of the Okami region, the current Emperor's late father, had subjugated the three kingdoms of Inaba, Yongen-Jaya and Tatsumi and created the empire in 667. Well, Yosuke had seen the firsthand damage from the invasion in Inaba. The structural damage had already long gone of course, but years of hefty taxes and reparations paid to the Okami overlord left the Kingdom of Inaba in poverty. He swore King Dojima was ageing faster and faster with each passing day, the treasury having long dried up and the population dwindling due to starvation and migration. The once thriving Inaba City was reduced to a ghost town, after a brutal war and the ensuing famine it retained a meager 30% of its original population. Okami was killing Inaba, and everyone knew it. In fact, the only reason the Kingdom hadn't failed to pay the high imperial taxes was because of Junes' trading in the capital, Okami City. The reason why his family didn't live in the lap of luxury being because of his family giving most of their vast profits to the king to keep Inaba going. Despite the kingdom managing to drag itself along, people had started referring to Inaba as the Kingdom of Ghosts, and between the ageing nobility and the dying population he could see why. It made Yosuke sad to read about Inaban history, so he moved onto the next section.

The story was different in Yongen-Jaya. Once divided into two rival Kingdoms: Yongen and Jaya, the Imperial Invasion used their infighting as an opportunity to occupy the land and install a puppet regime over the united kingdom of Yongen-Jaya in the form of the Masayoshi dynasty in the year 664. After a long stable reign of slavery, exploitation and corruption, the second Masayoshi king was ousted in a coup and King Amamiya was crowned the next day on the 19th of Shiwasu in the year 709. The peasant king (a title he earned due to rumours of his impoverished upbringing) quickly sought to uproot the corruption of the previous government, enacting a series of sweeping reforms that lifted the people out of poverty through wealth seizure, land acquisition and nationalisation of the country's valuable resources - coffee and spices. Previously, rich imperial elites controlled much of the country, their taxes going only to the empire, but Yongen-Jaya's new monopoly on those goods (being the only Kingdom in Okami with the right climate to grow them) allowed them to get the upper hand in negotiations with the Empire. 

The confiscation of vast swathes of land and plantations from Imperial elites led to a standoff between the Empire and Yongen-Jaya and an imperial boycott on all Yongen-Jaya goods, the Empire attempted to sow discord between the peoples of Yongen and Jaya to split the kingdom once more, but the people of both nations saw Amamiya, a man with parents from Jaya who was then adopted and raised in Yongen, to be representative of both their kingdoms respectively. Now with high public support, Yongen-Jaya stands in a good position to defend itself, a band of dense jungles separating the open plains of the north from the dense population centres of central and southern Yongen-Jaya. A full scale imperial invasion from the northern border would soon find itself lost in the rainforest with no supplies and an experienced guerrilla force waiting for them, leaving the two powers in a stalemate. As the imperial boycott of Yongen-Jaya goods drags on however, the treasury starts to run dry without the Yongen-Jaya taxes and public discontent with the standoff grows as people get bored of bland food and caffeine withdrawal. As of the 15th of Satsuki, Imperial year 710, the boycott had lasted for 2 months and was showing many signs of soon coming to an end.

The acquisition of the old Republic of Tatsumi was less of an invasion and more of a willing annexation. After the country's King was deposed by influential burghers from Okami, it was only a matter of time before they finally signed the unification treaty in Imperial year 667, leading to the creation of the Empire that same year. While the new republic seems to be doing well, all is not as it seems. The economically prosperous republic puts up a facade of equal prosperity on the territory of Port Island, with its extravagant castle, high-end university and luxurious housing, but the ugly truth underneath is more horrifying than anyone could ever imagine... 

shit, the history book just cut off there. Yosuke normally found history boring and dumb, but he really wanted to know what really happened on Tatsumi Port Island after the buildup. What could be more horrifying than anyone could ever imagine? While he got lost in thought trying to imagine something more horrifying than anyone could imagine, he was deaf to the footprints so it made him jump out of his skin when his father spoke.

"Yosuke Hanamura! You are not supposed to be reading my journal. Put that away!" 

"Ah! Yes dad, I'm sorry I just needed some reference material for my history homework... all the stuff in the library is way too old." Yosuke put his father's journal back in the desk drawer and turned back toward the man. He didn't look too angry, if anything he was a little proud. Yosuke's father chuckled to himself and ruffled Yosuke's already messed up hair.

"You know you could have just asked me, I would have told you anything in that book, as long as you promised not to tell anyone else." Presumably because the latest information on the boycott is something only merchants should be aware of. Yosuke considered asking his father about Tatsumi, but the look in his father's eyes told him all he needed to know, Tatsumi's secret was something his father would never tell him about. 

"Anyway, why are you even here, dad? I thought you were busy today." At Yosuke's question, it seemed his father remembered something important from the flash in his eyes. The man turned away and started to search his desk for something.

"That reminds me! King Dojima wants to meet with us. His royal highness has some sort of request and... I don't really think I'm going to like whatever it is. But apparently you have to come with me."

Huh, a meeting with the King. That wasn't a normal day's occurrence for Yosuke. It had to be something important to bring the heir of Junes along, but Yosuke was excited, because there was a tiny chance that this would be about the adventure he'd always dreamed of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like my little worldbuilding chapter 0 type deal here, you may have noticed that I wrote a lot more about Yongen-Jaya, and yes that is intentional. It's not a mistake. The reason the other nations don't have more backstory here is that a lot less has happened since the empire's establishment and I intend to represent the winds of change in those kingdoms as they blow through, but I won't neglect Yongen-Jaya either, we'll be seeing how things go between them and the empire in future. I also intend to cover the Okami empire proper in later chapters. 
> 
> I hope you're looking forward to seeing more of this world and the characters, I'm really excited for it myself, and I found writing this all to be really fun.
> 
> Edit: I know a lot of people won't see this until the next chapter is up, but I made a pretty detailed map showing the continent and the borders of all the countries. I spent a lot of time on it and I'm really proud of it. I'll be including it in the summary of every chapter going forward, since there will be a bit of travelling in this fic so I want there to be a reference map whenever you're reading so you can find out where the characters are travelling. I'm going to be naming the cities the characters will stop off at so you can follow the exact route the characters take by looking at the map. I hope being able to see the political situation makes everyone enjoy this fic a lot more, I'm really proud of the world I've come up with and I can't wait to explore it further.


End file.
